Study looks to light therapy to help patients after cancer

January 20, 2012 is a day Diane Franssen will never forget.

“I was having a bath and I felt a hard spot on the top of my right breast,” the 66-year-old grandmother recalls. She knew right away it was cancer.

Chemotherapy, surgery and radiation followed. For months, Franssen battled fatigue that stayed with her even after the final round of radiation.

“It’s the kind of exhaustion, sleep won’t help,” Franssen explains. “Your arms and legs feel really weak and you have very little strength.”

Fatigue is a common side effect of cancer treatment, impacting 96 per cent of patients. 33 per cent of patients say that fatigue stays with them for months after treatment.

“There was a study published last year showing that light therapy helped prevent the worsening of fatigue in women undergoing chemotherapy,” Jillian Johnson, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Calgary explains. “We wanted to see if it could help people who finish their treatments but still feel tired.” Read more here.